Fri 28 Dec 2007
This morning Al Hubin sent me Part 22 of his ongoing online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, and I uploaded it to the CFIV website this afternoon.
It’s noticeably shorter than previous installments. Al has exhausted most of the databases that he’s been systematically checking his records against: Contemporary Authors, Social Security files and so on. Most of the data now consists of small incremental pieces of information. Death dates, correctly identifying pseudonyms, adding settings, series characters, films made from movies, and every so often, new authors and titles that have been been missed till now.
Some small highlights from this installment. The Mike Brett who wrote a couple of books in the Ace Double series has been identified by his daughter as the same Michael Brett who later wrote the Pete McGrath PI novels for Pocket, among other work. The “Leslie Frederick Brett” who previously was supposed to have been the Ace Double Mike Brett has been scratched as that author. He is now the Michael Brett who wrote one criminous three-act play included in CFIV.
This is probably confusing. As soon as I have a free moment or two, I’ll do my best to straighten it all out, and you’ll read about it here first.
Also discovered have been three made-for-British-TV movies based on the Dr. David Audley spy novels by Anthony Price, films that had escaped Al’s notice until this week, when I happened to watch one of them (The Cold War Killers, based on The Labyrinth Makers) in a bargain DVD four-pack of “War Movies” I bought cheaply at a local library sale.
(The movie is recommended, by the way, although as usual I found I missed quite a deal, as whenever I watch a British spy movie the first time through, the cryptic conversations do not quite click as well as they should until I watch them a second time, which I haven’t yet.)
Two movies based on a pair of P. D. James’s books are also included, missed until now. Fans of Jacques Futrelle’s stories might like to know that his year of birth has been corrected, as well as the discovery of the name he was born under: John Heath Futrell. (Thanks to Victor Berch for these small but crucial pieces of information.)
Also note the following entry. Perhaps she was the longest living member of the MWA?
FAULKNER, FLORENCE (OSTERN). 1899-2006.
December 29th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Hi Steve,
As a (hopefully) helpful footnote to the above bit concerning Anthony Price and the TV movies, I may be able to add a little on these TV works.
The three ‘films’ released in the U.S. as TV films (or perhaps as DVD titles?) were compilations of a six-part, hour-long series called Chessgame, produced by Granada Television (UK) and shown in Britain via the ITV network 23 November-28 December 1983. Terence Stamp featured as security agent David Audley.
The Cold War Killers consisted of the episodes ‘Flying Blind’ and ‘Cold Wargame’, both scripted by Murray Smith and based on, as you state, the novel The Labyrinth Makers (1970). The Alamut Ambush was made up of that episode plus ‘Enter Hassan’, with Smith scripting again, and based on the 1971 novel. Deadly Recruits came from ‘The Roman Connection’ and ‘Digging Up the Future’, both scripted by John Brason and based on Colonel Butler’s Wolf.
Have a good New Year,
Tise
December 29th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Hi Tise
And many thanks. This helps clear up a good deal of confusion on my part. I didn’t realize that the three films were doubled-up and combined version of the TV series. I thought they were made separately and came along later. This also explains why The Cold War Killers appeared to introduce the characters. This film (the first two episodes) actually did.
I’ll rewrite the entry for Price in the Addenda to reflect all of this. Much obliged!
— Steve